2016 Corison Winery Cabernet Sauvignon St. Helena Napa Valley 750 ml

Over the last 30 years, as Napa Valley’s top winemakers have risen in fame, the prices on the bottles they produce have risen even faster. Yet Cathy Corison has managed to become a Napa Valley benchmark of Cabernet style and value—and amass an unprecedented number of accolades in the process.

Eric Asimov of the New York Times called Corison “among the greatest producers of Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa Valley,” and Hugh Johnson considers her a “national treasure.” The Chappellet and Staglin alum has been named the San Francisco Chronicle’s Winemaker of the Year, and was a finalist for a James Beard award each of the last three years.  

Corison Cabernets are all about balance over bombast, and no bottle captures that better than the 2016 Corison Cabernet Sauvignon, the thirtieth vintage of her signature Cabernet. With aromas of tobacco leaf and old book leather wafting from the glass atop beautiful red and black fruit, it’s got a full yet restrained body of glorious balance and tension, resolving in mouthwatering tannins.

This is our first-ever allocation of this modern Napa Valley classic, and it comes direct from Cathy’s St. Helena cellar. At the always-overdelivering price of $100, this Wine Enthusiast Cellar Selection is sure to go fast. 

“Cabernet is going to be powerful, no matter what you do,” Corison told us when we caught up over the phone recently. “But what I find interesting is the elegance.” The marriage of those two traits is what Corison wines have become known for. It starts in alluvial benchlands in the up-valley outpost of St. Helena, where the warm days contribute ripeness and velvety tannins, and extremely cool nights give complexity, flavor, color, and natural acidity. 

Capturing those characteristics requires the grapes to be picked properly by Corison’s standards—weeks before many growers are harvesting. “As grapes get riper and riper,” she says, “they lose the brighter end of the fruit spectrum, and you can’t get it back.” The result, in addition to a classically moderate alcohol level (always under 14%), is a Cabernet that displays the full range of fruit flavors, from red and blue to black and purple, many of which can easily be ripened away.

There was little danger of that in the 2016 vintage, which provided ideal conditions. “It was a long, cool season, and those are always my favorite,” she told us. “There wasn’t a single day after veraison where it got to 100.” 

Corison’s gently ripened 2016 Cabernet, picked at the perfect time, boasts the balance of power and elegance that has made her the “heroine” of no less an authority than Jancis Robinson, who describes Corison's wines as “the essence of Napa Valley, minus the bludgeoning force, plus a sensible price tag.” 

“Sensible,” in this case, means a fraction of what similarly accomplished winemakers (not that there are many) would charge. Perfect for the dinner table or the cellar, Corison Cabernets are classics that belong in every collection, and we know our share won’t last long.